How do you stop over-analyzing situations?

Post Reply New Topic

It really seems to take a toll mentally.

Usually, I don't.
When I do shift into action it's often on impulse.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Do you think about it after the fact, like going over everything you said and did and wondering how you could have handled it differently?

How to stop over-analyzing situations? I wish I knew. According to some people I can't buy a tin of beans without planning it like it was a bank robbery.

I've made some headway by trying to consider whether I'd come to much harm if I was more glib about the thing I was going to do. I guess I've been known to buy that tin of beans without really thinking much about it, at least on a good day. But it seems my brain wiring gives me a tendency to analyse most things, so it's often a matter of fighting it. Luckily I sometimes start to feel tired of doing so much mental work (though my mental stamina is pretty strong with so much practice), and that gives me enough desire to rebel against the world of thinking from time to time. There's not a lot of sense in making easy things hard.

Mind you, I wouldn't be without the ability to meticulously analyse things. It might take a long time, but the quality of some of my results can be quite impressive, and if I didn't take such care, I expect I'd be making a lot of things that don't work properly. If the project is expensive, a lot of money can be wasted on materials etc., but thinking only costs time, and as I'm retired with only a moderate pension, I have more spare time than spare money. And I get a lot of satisfaction from doing a job intelligently and well, even if it doesn't have to be done well.

I don't because I can't. I analyze everything.

Diversion

"Here and now" mantra

Is thar an autistic trait? Because I always used to that, not in all situations, only in those that I was extremely puzzled and overwhelmed with. I than start analizing everything in an obsessive way until my brain eventually explode. The only thing that could calm me down is walking so fast until I get too exausted to think about anything.

I try to distract myself and think about something less stressful

Dr. Camilla Pang in Explaining Humans talks about Bayes' theorem.

It's a formula for working out the probability of interlinked events. I won't do a maths infodump here, but basically you can reduce an unpredictable human situation into a logic problem, i.e. turn 'What is going to happen?' into 'There is an X percent chance of this happening'.

The really good news is that you don't have to know anything about maths to make this work on principle, i.e. it doesn't matter if you get the figures completely wrong - the point is that you get a figure on it at all, instead of the situation just being a chaos of unknowns. For me it has worked wonders in resting my brain.

Screw the consequences and outcomes, I say.

Take a gamble nevermind what everyone thinks and whatever standards imposed, I say.

Nevermind your limbic system and your prefrontal cortex fighting, I say.



Not recommended for the constantly anxious/perfectionists.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

I’m 52 and just diagnosed a month ago. I learned over the years, actually with the help of OCD podcasts, to not, or stop engaging with repetitive thoughts. It’s something that takes practice. Especially when you have been doing it your whole life like me.

If it is a small matter, I'll get distracted and move on soon enough. If it is a big deal, and I've done a good job gathering data and making pro vs con lists, etc, and things are still quite even, I flip a coin. However, I don't necessarily do as the call says. Half the time, as soon as I see the result, I'm disappointed rather than happy, and that is what makes up my mind. The coin is used to evoke my feelings.